What is more likely moving forward?

AK wins a major

AK on the 2027 Ryder Cup Team

AK on lunch with the boys

Today, the Pebble Beach Company offered insights into Gil Hanse's upcoming transformation of the Links at Spanish Bay. This project has had, by the standards of the 2020s, an extended gestation period: PBC announced that it had hired Hanse back in 2023, committed to a timeline last year, and is now revealing details of Hanse's plan. The work will begin on March 18 of this year, and the reimagined course is scheduled to open in April 2027, two months before Pebble Beach Golf Links hosts the U.S. Open.

Designed by Robert Trent Jones, Jr., with consultation by Tom Watson and Sandy Tatum, the Links at Spanish Bay opened in 1987 and has long lagged behind PBC's other two seaside golf properties, Pebble Beach and Spyglass Hill, in both regard and profitability.

Here, quoted from the press release, are a handful of changes that Hanse intends to make:

• Relocating several green sites, including the current 14th and 18th holes, creating room for an entirely new par 3* that will replace the current 13th hole
• Expanding putting greens by ~40% and completely resurfacing to provide smoother, more receptive targets and variety for hole locations
• Replacing the rough in the green surrounds with low-cut turf to offer more recovery options
• Widening fairways by ~30%, repositioning fairway bunkers, and adjusting contours to make the playing corridors more forgiving and strategic
• Repositioning and redesigning tee complexes to open sight lines and options, reduce forced carries, and elicit excitement at each hole....
• Redesigning the cart path system to better blend into the landscape

(*The new par 3 will play to the existing 14th green site, which looks out on Asilomar State Beach.)

Hanse's primary intention, it seems to me, is to bring Spanish Bay out of the 1980s. Like many courses built in that decade, it was harder than it needed to be, especially for everyday resort play, and it failed to blend in with the surrounding landscape, with its push-up greens and cookie-cutter containment mounding. Most of Hanse's planned changes seem aimed at enhancing playability and settling the course into the terrain.

As Derek Duncan's Golf Digest piece from earlier today suggests, however, there's only so much Hanse can do. I'm sure the architect would like to color outside the lines of Jones's original design a bit more, but a wholesale rerouting would be unlikely to pass regulatory muster. Also, the realities of mainstream resort golf will always limit the degree to which the Links at Spanish Bay can authentically live up to its name. The rye grass and cart paths must stay.

Nonetheless, this project is obviously a step in the right direction. Let's hope it opens some eyes as to what might be achievable at the company's flagship property.

I'm trying to find a course to complete my trip to GA/FL, between Atlanta and the Florida line would be ideal, coming from Ft Myers either the night before or the morning of. Let me know where I should play, and if it's possible to even get on anywhere decent. Thanks

Taking the challenge from last week's SGS podcast, this is draft 1 of the tracker to show Which Sig Event Group plays best: The (Top 4 of the) AON Swing 5 or the Sponsor Exemptions.

https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/john.cusick/viz/PGA_Signature_Events/EventPeformance#1

As time permits, I'll enhance. I have ideas, but they will have to wait until the weekend. I'll also take suggestions for enhancements.

Notes: This is not built for a phone display.

Datasource: https://www.pgatour.com/

I think I remember Andy talking about a “golf architect family tree” on a podcast or video at one point. As someone who is a visual learner, I always thought that would be a really nice visual to have, so I did some quick searching online but couldn’t find anything.

I tried to make my own today, but got stressed that the direction I was going wasn’t correct/could be organized in a much better way. So before I go crazy I wanted to ask if anyone knows if a visual like this already exist? And if not, would anyone be willing to help me think through a more accurate or better way to organize this?

Long shot here but in the event that anyone reading this can make it to Aiken this weekend we have a spot available for you at The Tree Farm. Golf on Sunday afternoon, all day Monday, and on Tuesday morning. Two nights of lodging on site in the Crow's Nest at The Tree Farm.

Shoot me an email if you're interested. will@thefriedegg.com

Candyroot Lodge, an under-construction golf resort an hour outside of Charlotte, North Carolina, announced the name of its first course: Milkstone.

"Milkstone at Candyroot."

Maybe a little much?

The important thing, of course, is that the golf course turns out well. With Mike Koprowski (of Broomsedge fame) at the wheel, I think there's a good chance of that happening. Check out his plan for the course:

Friend of the Program Geoff Shackelford has an excellent piece for his Substack newsletter The Quadrilateral about Pebble Beach's renovated 10th green (and about the history of the hole in general). It appears that, for the first time in decades, Pebble Beach has carried out a project that might accurately be called a restoration! Now if only the fairway were restored to its late-1920s width...

The latest Coore & Crenshaw design, Anson Point, opened earlier this week in the South Carolina residential community Palmetto Bluff. The course joins Palmetto Bluff's two other golf offerings, May River Golf Club (an 18-hole course designed by Jack Nicklaus in 2005) and Crossroads (a reversible nine-holer built by Tad King and Rob Collins in 2024). Here's a promotional video on the course featuring some commentary from the design team, and here's a flyover of each hole.

Anson Point is about 45 minutes from another Lowcountry Coore & Crenshaw joint, Chechessee Creek Club, and an hour from Harbour Town Golf Links.

Early images suggest that, like Chechessee Creek, Anson Point will be low-profile and elegant, with smallish, subtly contoured greens. This will set the course sharply apart from Crossroads, which is quite boldly shaped.

Hey all,

I prebooked this time weeks ago and unfortunately had an important work lunch meeting pop up, and Iʻm unable to make it. All 4 spots are available. Please text me if interested.. (281)256-5091

Pebble is scheduled to host the U.S. Open four times between 2027 and 2044. It's the shortest course on the PGA Tour, with insanely small greens (3,500 square feet) that have been systematically de-sloped and de-contoured so they can stimp at 14. Its bunkers frame resort-width fairways, and float 15 yards into the rough when the fairways are slimmed. A restoration or renovation is not financially practical when you factor in a year's worth of revenue lost. There is no incentive from a business perspective to shut the course down.

So my question is: since we know Pebble will be a U.S. Open course for the foreseeable future, how do you present the best version of it? What can realistically be done to create a compelling championship?

Hello all,

Heading to the Open Championship and then going up north and thinking of staying in the Edinburgh area and playing a bunch of rounds. Anyone have a good place to stay and a few fun spot for a pint and some food.

Thanks

Going Thursday to the Open Championship but looking for golf in the area on wednesday and friday. Would like to play one links and one parkland course. Anyone have a few favorites in the area or even a few hours away.

Thanks

I'm heading to Pinehurst in mid-March for a 4-round package (#'s 4, 10, 2, 8 in that order). This is my first time to the resort/area, so looking for any tips, to-do's, course pitfalls, or anything anyone else wants to provide. We are staying on property in the Manor house.

Thanks in advance.

WM Sunday was the first round this year where I really paid attention to the broadcast and I have to say that the CBS team in this configuration is honestly great. Knowledgeable, humorous, and worth listening to. Dottie & Colt do a fantastic job. Going to try and enjoy the next two weekends until the switch to NBC and the ramshackle production they call a golf broadcast. Not to say anyone on the NBC team doesn't try or care, but they are hamstrung by 'the legendary Tom Roy.'